


Let's Grow Above The Dirt

by Songofstorms3



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Queer Character, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23074450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songofstorms3/pseuds/Songofstorms3
Summary: Everyone who dies at Watford is buried in the Catacombs, except for Ebb, who is buried deep within the Wood.
Relationships: Dryad/Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	Let's Grow Above The Dirt

**Author's Note:**

> I was struck by the fact that Ebb wasn't buried in the catacombs, despite being killed at Watford.
> 
> Ebb lived at Watford, protected the grounds, tried to live a simple life. She spent time with the Wood, the goats, the dirt. She seems to see Simon's feelings for Baz, before he does. And Nico's comment, wondering if his sister is still a virgin, whether "feeling up girls even count(s)". This is a one shot that came out of some feelings I had about Ebb and her identity, her death, and what it meant to the creatures of the Wood.
> 
> The title comes from a Be Steadwell song, "Greens".

Ebb is buried deep in the Wood.

She died in the White Chapel fighting the Mage, saving Agatha from being sacrificed for his mad plan. To have her deep in the catacombs, away from the light, the trees, the play of the sun on the underside of green leaves seemed a terrible fate. Dying at Watford, there was a procedure. But the catacombs shuddered and withdrew into the ground. No one could find the entrance nor detect the open hallways below the White Chapel. They thought perhaps, the magic that raged around the building that day, did something to the foundation of the building. There was no way of knowing the specifics of the spells used that day. The Mage was dead. Simon was silent and broken. Ebb was gone. So the mages brought Ebb downstairs at a loss for what to do.

Professor Bunz sat silently beside the body of Ebeneza. Another young magician struck down in someone else’s war, the Mage’s consuming drive to absorb the power of this world. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she turned her neck side to side to ease the ache there. It had been hours, but someone needed to sit with Ebb until her family could be notified. Professor Bunz volunteered first watch. They can’t even find the catacombs right now, no one even knew where to start looking. The world of magic was in chaos, but the quiet of the White Chapel was an eerie contrast, out of sync with the reality of the moment.

A noise like the wind through dry leaves skitters across the floor near her feet. Professor Bunz saw the slightest shadow, the barest mention, of a Dryad, brushing the dirty blonde hair behind Ebb’s ear. The Dryad made eye contact, despite being a nearly intangible thing, her eyes bright and challenging.“Do not put the golden one in the dark.”  
Professor Bunz remained carefully still. And listened.  
“The Wood. The Wood. Let her return to the Wood.”  
And the Dryad, her gray brown skin shimmering in the light, walked quietly away, fading into the dust motes and broken glass and silent air.

Nico was notified. Through a series of complicated back channels and whispers. A courtesy, they called it. But there was no need. He felt the pain drive through his heart, the warmth of blood pooling down his body, the moment it happened. Seeing his own chest, gray and sunken, through the sensation, only created a worse dissonance. He felt truly dead. He had wanted to live forever. But not with a grief like this.

Ebb is buried in the Wood.

  
Her grave is unmarked, by magician standards. There are mushrooms circling the place her head lays, a bizarre crown of vegetation. Moss and flowers blanket the grave as if it’s been here for years. The Dryad listens. And waits. Memories like echoes, lingering in the air, a few seconds out of sync. Of when Ebb came to the Wood, afraid, lost. Past the point of crying, just dry heaving into the dirt. Clutching her arms and shrinking into a heap at the base of an ancient tree. The Dryad listened to the air then, the feeling of leaves parting over roots, the crinkle as Ebb shuddered with another dry heave.  
“What do you seek?”  
Ebb, startled, chokes out something that’s half sob, half laugh. Wipes her face, smearing dirt across her nose, with the sleeve of her Watford jumper. “Gone. Isn’t he?”  
The Dryad pauses. Listens. “The other heart half? The fallen one?”  
Ebb freezes. Looks around. She can’t lose this too. She can’t lose Watford. She just can’t. She says nothing.  
The Dryad kneels neatly in the leaves. And listens. To the silence. To everything Ebb can’t say.  
Ebb meets her eyes. Bright, solemn.  
They sit in silence. But somehow, Ebb feels less alone.

Ebb returns daily after that. Touching the bark of the trees with light fingers, letting the sensations of the different textures ground her in the moment. She walks the Wood. She sees the faint images of magical creatures, existing in their own way at Watford. Inside the grounds, but outside the boundaries she’s kept around her own heart. She talks quietly to the dry leaves, to the sunlight chasing shadows across the rocky half walls. She tells the Wood her sorrow. And the Wood holds it.  
She tells the Wood of expectations. Of dreams. Of never feeling she quite belonged. Of how the trust and kindness of animals, feels so much safer than the unpredictability of people. If her own brother could leave her in such a way, could she ever really understand people?

She speaks of the burning feeling in her eyes, the roll of desire, of longing, that threatened to pour from her mouth, when she thought of the girls who caught her eye. Of the shame, the fear, the self-loathing, of quiet tender moments being explained away by drink, by silly exploration, the feeling of her heart dropping into her stomach, over and over again, when she heard what they said, the perversion of intimate moments. She swallowed down, again, and again, and again, the feelings sitting low in her throat, a perpetual burning sensation.

The Dryad hears it all. And holds it for Ebb. Ebb puts the magic, the longing, the grief, down in the footprints she leaves on the soft dirt of the path. And the Dryad gathers it slowly into her arms. Weaves it into the folds of her dress, the mossy length of her hair. She listens.

The first time the Dryad touched Ebbs’s arm, she froze. The first time the Dryad offered Ebb a hand, over the trickling stream, she fought the urge to grab it, and fell right in. The jumper was soaked. The Dryad hid a smile behind a handful of brightly colored leaves she gathered off the ground beside Ebb. And she coaxed her to the edge of the Wood, where the sun hit the rocks just right.

The first time Ebb reached for the Dryad’s hand, she panicked. Her mind racing, of all the ways it could be misconstrued, of how she should hide the way her eyes watched the gray brown of the Dryad’s skin, and how it softened in places, like the palest birch tree, and thickened in bands, across the wrists. She worried her eyes showed the deep desire to run her fingers down the length of the Dryad’s spine. The landscape of her. The way she felt knowing that the Dryad heard everything Ebb never said. And those moments, rushing back to the forefront of her mind, preemptive damage control, the way she’d hugged a friend in the past and felt the guilt rise in her, or the day she made out with a drunken friend at the pub, that day she snuck out with Fiona and Nicky. The way Nicky had laughed, described it, as drunken groping. The shame in her desire, that ever-present longing that just needed to be filled up and held. But the Dryad stayed. Solid as the tree behind her back. Mossy hair against Ebb’s jaw, delicate fingers laced with her own.

It broke in her, the moment the Dryad pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, months into their meetings. And when the Dryad kissed her softly on the mouth, smelling of moss, of sunshine, of growing things and the slightest hint of decaying leaves. All of the clutter in Ebb’s mind was washed away. The love poured from her chest, directly into the earth below her. The ground pulsed with magic, the softest push, the ripple of water below. The Wood felt it. And remembered. It let Ebb just be.

The Dryad listens.

She knows the chances are small. She listens to the water breaking on rocks near the moat. The owls nesting near the path. The achingly soft sensation of petals dropping from the flowers against the dirt below the tree next to the grave.

The slight shudder in the leaves. The smallest green shoot, edging its way through the dirt. Raising itself above the decay, the delicate sound of new tiny leaves pushing out, and up.

The Dryad smiles. She can wait. She can listen. She can hold this again.

It’s only a matter of time.


End file.
